Danielle Guzick

I am a thirty year old woman who has faced cancer twice in my lifetime. The first time I had Hodgkin's was stage 2B and the second Stage 4B.

Facing cancer from the age of 22-27 is tough. It takes away the(supposedly) best years of your life. It is difficult to hopefully meet someone and marry, not knowing whether or not you may never have children. As a young woman in the prime of her life, I grow fearful that I will never see my thirty-first birthday or have the joy of motherhood.

Sometimes, you feel like an outcast, like you have the word cancerwritten on your forehead and everyone knows that you are different. Life isdifferent for a cancer patient in remission. When you go to theoncologist, you never know what the results are going to be. It is kind oflike playing Russian roulette, you never know which one has the bullet.

I hope that I will be able to see the sunshine, smell the flowers,laugh with my loved ones, for a long time. But, if a higher power needs me, Iknow that the time spent here on this planet will be for me to educatepeople my age that we are not immortal and things can disappear with a blinkof an eye.

January 19,1999 is my fourth year in remission. I know I will make itto my fifth.